Plenary Absolution
Should I arrive upon keening steps
Of God’s own entry door.
And the gate be barred for me to pass
Humbled sinner to my core.
And when God asks what right have I
To mercy so divine
“Lord, you gave me a rare, good man to love.
I’ve been wise and loved him fine.”
© 10 June 2024, Teresa L. Snyder, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged
My husband is wearing his “lucky shirt.” It’s his warm weather version of the lucky
shirt, as there is a flannel shirt that carries the same designation when the
temperature is cooler. Today’s shirt is
short sleeved, in kelly green, royal blue, and white. My husband’s blue eyes look good with these
colors.
I’m not sure when this shirt got designated as lucky. Certainly,
it was not in 2016 when I was first diagnosed.
Nor in the spring of 2017 when the swollen orange peel looking mess
called for a punch biopsy and an ultrasound.
I know it wasn’t there when I did a follow up MRI in September but by
then I had been diagnosed with Lymphedema and had been making weekly 2 hour
plus round trips to help the worst of those symptoms.
Did he have the shirt, the following March, when they
brought him back to me as I cried quietly on the bench? When they told me that
a large number of cell clusters in my breast were too small and too many to
biopsy. I would have to wait six months, SIX MONTHS, to
reevaluate, to see if any or all were cancerous.
As I am riding in the car today, I reach into my purse to
check for the third or fourth time to make sure that the old beat-up eyeglass
case that carries my own good luck charms is sitting securely in one of the
pockets of the purse. My friend Jill had
sent me a small angel, of clear plastic and purple, that was in the case. An old, frayed post- it note folded into
quarters that my husband had left for me, and I had taken with me to each
medical procedure, consultation or surgery ever since, is also in the
case.
We’ve discussed, my husband and I, what the note says. It has been so long since it was written. It is too fragile to open and read. “I love you,” I venture. “Good luck,” he suggests. Both? Neither of us remember but it is an
important part of the ritual.
“I don’t want to do this,” I say.
“I know.” He looks
over, reaches out his right hand so he can pat my own hand.
“I’ve been good this time,” I say. “I haven’t said that as much as I usually
do.”
He just smiles at me.
“What?” “I have said
this as much as usual?”
He keeps smiling.
Since 2017, I have been driving to a center in a larger
city, which specializes in breast health.
It had been my Oncologist’s idea.
Twice a year, alternating mammogram and MRI every six months, we would
make the pilgrimage. The year of the Big Scare I had an extra mammogram and an ultrasound. They tell patients
like me, breast cancer survivors, the results right there as you wait. No
nervously waiting for a doctor’s call or a letter (though a letter is still
sent) to know what they see, good or bad.
Compassion is telling the patient at once. I have hugged and been hugged
in those changing rooms at that center.
Covid messed things up.
All medical procedures were cancelled, and my mammogram was delayed
because of the closure of the center.
When they started seeing patients again, they called survivors and
worked us in first. It delayed the
mammogram by a month. When I saw my CNP
at the breast surgeon’s office, I told her I wanted to forgo my MRI that
Fall. My parents were almost 90 at the
time, and the Covid shots were almost a year in the future. I didn’t want to
take any chances of infecting them, or let’s be honest, myself, either. My CNP
agreed. I didn’t miss doing the MRI – not one bit.
Breast Cancer, and I did not realize this until my own
diagnosis in July of 2016, is an umbrella phrase for a number of different
cancers affecting the breast. If you are
diagnosed with BC, then hope that they diagnosis you with something called DCIS
– Ductal Carcinoma in Situ. It means the
cancer started in the milk ducts of your breast and has STAYED inside that
duct. It doesn’t matter how big it is,
just that it didn’t pop through the wall and become IDC – Invasive Ductal
Carcinoma.
About 20% of diagnosed BC are DCIS. Yep, you still have to do surgery, maybe
radiation, possibly take some pills, and it is not fun, but DCIS does not metastasize. Of course, now you know your traitorous cells
know how to mutate and cause cancer, so that sucks.
Once it goes invasive, however, all bets are off. Stray
cancer cells can get into the lymph system.
Your lymph nodes are your body’s way of trying to keep those bad cells
from taking a ride around in your lymph system, but once they reached the
nodes, you have no way of knowing if they stopped all the cancer cells from
getting through to your lymph system.
Even if those bad cells don’t make it to the lymph system, cancer
cells like to form where blood supply can feed them. There is nothing to say a cell or two or more
won’t hitch a ride in your blood vessels, traveling to who knows where. And the really tricky thing about cancer
cells is that they can hide and go dormant, just waiting for the opportunity to
wake up and multiply. That can happen in
a week, a month, a year or several decades.
Treatment for breast cancer relies on tumor size, grade, the
type of receptors, and whether or not it has the HER2 growth factor.
Breast Cancer can have estrogen receptors (the cancer feeds
on the estrogen) and/or progesterone receptors.
You can have anywhere from 0% to 100% positivity in your receptors. The higher the percentage, the more likely hormone
blocking pills will stop the cancer’s growth.
HER2 growth factor, and you are getting this from a patient
not a medical person, is a protein that acts like a fire chief at a fire. Instead of calling for more water, the protein
demands more cancer cells. It probably
won’t surprise you to know that this is a very aggressive form of cancer. Somewhere in the vicinity of 15 to 20 percent
of BC has the HER2 growth factor. About
10% of all BC patients have estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors, and the
HER2 protein. This is called Triple Positive cancer. Did I mention it is aggressive? Triple Positive is my type of cancer.
(Just a note: If you
are thinking that you would vote for having none of those receptors or HER2 because
it must not be aggressive, you would be wrong.
Triple Negative is aggressive and right now, it has less therapies to
throw against it than the other cancers. 10% of all diagnosed BC is Triple
Negative. Research is needed! Now!)
Because I had surgery to remove the tumor before I had seen an
Oncologist, the treatment plan was going to be adjuvant (after surgery) rather
than neo-adjuvant (before surgery). In
the case of HER2 positive cancers, they like to do the chemo and targeted
surgery plan first so they can decide how effective the treatment has been. My Oncologist, who was supposed to be my
second opinion but I absolutely loved her, proposed the following treatment
plan - six rounds of chemo – 2 different types- every three weeks. At the same time, I was to be given two
targeted therapies for the HER2 positive part of the cancer. One would be for 6 sessions, the other for 18
sessions. Radiation after chemotherapy and hormone blocking pills for 5 to 10
years.
The notebook I was given said that I would feel the effects
of the chemo for 3 or 4 days of each three-week cycle. Nope, not me, I was sick for 16 days of the
cycle. Many days all I ate were nibbles of potato chips and sips of lemonade,
as that was the only measure we tried that stopped the nausea. I ended up going in a few times for fluid
IV’s and finally, my Oncologist said we would be stopping the chemo after 4
cycles. She said to me, “We’re trying to
cure you, not kill you.” I didn’t argue.
One of the targeted therapies I was given was a drug called
Trastuzumab, or Herceptin. It targets a part
of the gene for HER2. It almost didn’t
get a clinical trial, it almost didn’t make it to market, and it wasn’t until 8
years after being approved for metastatic HER2 cancer that it finally was
approved for people like me. The movie
“Living Proof” (2008) and the documentary “I Want So Much to Live” (2009) tell
the drug’s journey to the marketplace. I think of it as a tiny miracle and it came
very close to never existing!
The drug, however, did have drawbacks. Before it could be administered, I had to
have an Echocardiogram to prove my heart could manage the drug. Then, I had to
have an Echo every six to eight weeks while I was on the drug. It took a year, but I completed the 18
infusions.
I lost my hair – not just on my head, but eyebrows, nose
hairs (I really missed them), and I now can pluck my leg hairs as opposed to
shaving them. I lost all my
fingernails. Not all at once, and not
only one time. My toenails bit the dust
and my gastrointestinal track has never been the same. One day while I was at
my desk barefooted, I looked down and thought that my whole heel had come off. It
hadn’t. It was the calloused part of my
heels that had fallen off thanks to chemo. But my feet were very soft for a
long time after that.
Two people who were 9 months and 16 months ahead of me, with
the same cancer and treatment had reoccurrences early on. It’s not
uncommon. One before the BIG SCARE and
one during. They had to do the chemo and targeted drugs all over. I was devastated for them and terrified for
me.
One of the women on the forum I inhabited, was cancer free
from the neck down, but HERS2 likes the brain and that was where her cancer
reoccurred. She left behind two very
young sons.
A very sweet woman who was Triple Negative, who was
diagnosed shortly after me and had a tumor about the same size as mine and no
cancer in the nodes like me, metastasized.
She was such a good person and she shared research of all types of
Breast Cancer. One day when she was having a rough time, I let her know how
much her research and posts had meant to me. She answered me back and told me I
had made her cry but in a good way. We
lost her in August 2022, and I still think of her often.
My cancer was mentioned on an organization’s blog. The writer
wrote that it “seemed” that I had “beat cancer.” It angered me when I read that but it also
hurt. She casually invalidated everything I had been through. Every time I have an ache or a pain, extra
tests are run on me, because of my history.
Last year, I had surgery on my eyes and the surgeon had the debris evaluated,
to make sure there were no cancer cells present.
Blood work and annual scans cause me a lot of anxiety. It always will. I have no idea if the cancer will come back
or if the drugs, I took may have damaged some other part of my body that will
end up killing me. Beat cancer? You do not beat it. You just keep showing up and doing what you
have to with fingers crossed, good luck charms and
lucky shirts.
On this day, I go in and have the mammogram while my husband
waits in the reception room. I am always
trying to read the tech’s expression to see if I can tell anything. The wait when she goes to show the radiologist
my films is interminable.
My husband tells me later as I come through the door to the
reception area, I have a big smile on my face and I give him a thumb’s up (honestly,
I didn’t know I did that) and he knows
without a word that I have received a NED verdict – No Evidence of
Disease. For today then, I am
relieved. Tomorrow is another day.
© 15 May 2024, Teresa L. Snyder, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged
I have read that some Ancestry DNA subscribers have over
100,000 matches to their accounts. I can’t imagine. I monitor 9 accounts on
Ancestry and as of today their total matches range from 18,000 to 86,000. My own matches are at a little over
28,000. Even at that much smaller
number, this is a lot of information to sift through to find a common ancestor.
Ancestry’s Thru-Lines and their Common Ancestors go back to 5X
Great Grandparents. However, the majority of our matches do not fall into
these categories, and that interesting match that you have wondered about remains a
mystery.
One way to increase the number of known matches is to go
back to your 5X Great Grandparents and fill in the names of their children and complete
their genealogy to the present day. Do that for each generation. This will make a hefty but knowledge
rich environment, and that will help Ancestry identify more common ancestors in
your match list.
It sounds simple enough, but if, like me, you have a significant
chunk of your ancestry that resides in another country, the information is not
that easy to come by.
My father's generation is the first full generation to be born in this
country. His maternal ancestors came
from what was then Germany but is now part of Poland. After World War II when the German’s were
expelled from their land East of the Oder-Neisse line, the majority of vital
records for this area were lost. Those records that survived were scattered to
different institutions in both Germany and Poland.
Below is a map of the Stolp district in Pomerania where dad’s
maternal ancestry lived. The map is from 1794 but the area is the same
(outlined in yellow) as it was in 1945.
The city of Stolp had a population of 50,377 in the last full census
taken in 1939. The rest of the district
had a population of 83,009 in that same census.
In 1815, Pomerania became a part of the Prussian Kingdom and when the various
German states unified into the German Empire in 1871, Stolp's citizens became German citizens.
In 1874, the areas of the Prussian State required civil
registrations of births, marriages and deaths. Prior to that, church records were
the only source of this information in Pomerania.
When I wanted to add family members to my 3X Great
Grandmother, Henriette Bastubbe Gliffe, I was disappointed to learn that there
was no birth record or marriage record available for her. I did however, have a death record which gave
me her date of birth. On the other hand, of her
nine children, I had 7 of their births available in Church Baptismal
Registers. And that meant there were Godparents listed!
Sometimes Godparents were friends of the parents. Sometimes Godparents were grabbed from
whomever was available when an ill baby needed to be baptized immediately. Sometimes the weather was bad on the intended
baptismal date, and the original Godparents could not be there. But
sometimes the Godparents were relatives of the parents.
I looked at the Godparents for Henriette’s children. Twenty one Godparents and only one had the
last name of Bastubbe, Ferdinand Bastubbe from Labüssow. Labüssow is a
village a the church district of Groß Dübsow.
As you can see above, I have marked the 4 churches in the
area where my ancestors lived. For the
most part they belonged to the church in Budow. Labüssow, which is located a little north of Groß
Dübsow, was a bit of ways for someone to come who was not important to
Henriette. So I started looking at all
of the Bastubbe individuals in that church district. Fortunately, there is an index database
online that allowed me to do this.
The remarkable group, Stolper Heimatkreise e.V., has over 5
million names in the index. Not all the
records are available online, but another website, Pommerscher Grief e.V, can
tell you which church and civil registers are available, where they are located, which ones are digitized and how to find them on the Internet. This website was updated
earlier this year, and they did a beautiful job, making things easier to find
on the site. Both of these organizations
are stellar. I used them both extensively when doing my Bastubbe search.
I did not find Ferdinand but eventually, I came across a wedding entry for a Ernestine
Luise Bastubbe. It was her second
marriage and it listed a father, a Paul Bastubbe who was deceased, but had
lived in Grünheide by Gaffert. This
location was in the Budow district. When
I looked at the Godparents for Ernestine’s children, there were two Bastubbe
names listed, Carl Friedrich and Ferdinand.
In the end,(with some translation help from a forum friend) I found three marriage records listing a deceased
Paul Bastubbe of Grünheide as the father.
Unless you are related, you won’t care about the details. However, I made a timeline for each of the
siblings, Ernestine Luise Bastubbe, Henriette Bastubbe, Carl Friedrich August
Bastubbe, and Martin Ferdinand Gottlieb (who, according to the death record of
his son Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Bastubbe, went by the name Ferdinand.) I made a timeline for the father, Paul
Bastubbe. Then I color coded which
events they intersected.
Below are the five timelines.
You can see the interaction between the individuals. Ernestine really did turn out to be the key. She interacted with each member. The bonus – one of Ernestine’s sons emigrated to the United States. A descendant took the test and her results were sitting in my match list waiting for me to find her. My brother had two descendants in his list, but he’s kind of showy that way.
In case there is someone who is related to this family, I am
putting the timeline sources below. KB stands
for Kirchenbuch (Church Book). Taufen, Heiraten, and Tote are for the Baptismal
Register, the Marriage Register, and the Death Register, respectively.
Until Next Time
Source of Ernestine
Luise Bastubbe Timeline
1. KB Groß Dübsow Heiraten, 1840/7
2. KB
Lupow Tote, 1853/37
3. Standesamt
Lupow Heiraten, 1879/3
4. KB
Groß Dübsow Taufen, 1837/56
5. KB
Budow Taufen, 1841/42
6. KB
Groß Dübsow Taufen, 1844/46
7. KB
Budow Taufen, 1844/34
8. KB
Groß Dübsow Taufen, 1847/67
9. KB
Budow Taufen, 1849/5
10. KB Groß Dübsow Taufen, 1851/1
11. DNA Test with Ancestry
Sources of Henriette GLIFFE geb. BASTUBBE Timeline
1. KB
Budow Tote, 1872/29
2. KB
Groß Nossin Heiraten, 1859/28
3. KB
Budow Taufen, 1839/4
4. KB
Budow Taufen 1841/54
5. KB
Budow Taufen, 1844/34
6. KB
Budow Taufen, 1846/52
7. KB
Budow Taufen, 1849/5
8. KB
Budow Taufen, 1852/5
9. KB
Budow Taufen, 1855/23
10. Zurückgeführtes Erstregister, Berlin X A, Heiraten, 1880/231
11. DNA Test with Ancestry
Sources of Carl Friedrich August BASTUBBE Timeline
1. Trier
Stadt Heiraten, 1846/111
2. KB
Groß Dübsow Taufen, 1837/56
3. 1852
Trier Einwohnerliste Sektion I, 1852/ 210-6
Sources of Martin Ferdinand Gottlieb BASTUBBE Timeline
1. KB Groß Dübsow Heiraten, 1845/25a
2. KB
Budow Taufen, 1841/42
3. KB
Budow Taufen, 1844/34
4. Zurückgeführtes
Erstregister, Berlin II, Heiraten, 1877/675
5. Berlin Erstregister Tote, Berlin V A 1909/1
Sources of Paul Bastubbe Timeline
1. KB Groß Dübsow Heiraten, 1840/7
2.
3.
© 11 May 2024, Teresa
L. Snyder, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged
